(11-12-2014 09:47 AM)7 Wrote: NIU is 12th in the country in rushing yards. They have a good offensive line.
They are really good at their gap scheme blocking, which is why they can pound teams in the 4th quarter with Stingily and Hare can do that weird-ass skunk waddle he does for 4 yards every time on the read.
They struggle with zone blocking, especially getting on linebackers. That s*#^head from Ball St had about 3000 tackles last week because he never seemed need to shed a block all night. That was a huge problem against CMU, whose backers work against the best zone blocking O-line in the conference every day.
They're probably not as great as they've shown the last two years because
HIM was in the backfield and scared the s*^t out of everyone. This year, with our QB play decidedly average, they've made lemonade with lemons.
The last two weeks, with the game on the line, they've gotten the drives they needed to put the boot on the opposition and pull the trigger. When they work to their strengths, they're the best in the conference. When they get forced out of their comfort zone, they look very average.
I'd like to see our offensive emphasis
return to being physical, physical, physical. I'm not saying I want Stingily to run "power" every play of the game, but I feel like we've slowly gotten away from that in the last few years. If you watched Minnesota over the weekend against Iowa, you saw our old offense (which could be predictable as hell) but Limegrover's guys left Iowa
beat to s^*t. I think that physical emphasis has gotten a little lost at times, even though I generally like our offense better under Doeren/Carey. They definitely benefited from having Kill lay that physical groundwork before them.
Carey prefers the gap scheme stuff, but we're not quite so good at executing the other stuff to keep defenses honest. Plus, even if we got soft, the Jordan Lynch MurderDeathMachine masked it.
This team will take a true team effort to keep winning. The Vern Smith doesn't feel like it's coming back down Annie Glidden road this year. Hopefully, they can get the job done.